Technical Field
The subject matter disclosed herein relates to computer aided technologies (CAx) such as computer aided design, engineering, analysis and manufacture in general and apparatus, systems, means, and methods for multi-user CAx editing in particular.
Discussion of the Background
Large design and engineering projects require coordination of the efforts of many designers or engineers, and efficient utilization of their efforts calls for multi-user CAx systems that allow designers and engineers to simultaneously work on a model. Two major challenges in the design of multi-user CAx systems are: (1) providing consistent views of the design model and references to geometric entities for all users, and (2) designing a system efficient enough to respond to user input without significant delays while operations and received and processed for a large number of users.
Existing CAx systems, however, are not well-suited to multi-user design and editing. For example, some multi-user CAx systems enable multiple users to view and modify a single, centralized copy of a design model. This architecture addresses the consistency issue by providing only one copy of the model for all users. However, providing views of the shared model to multiple clients involves transmitting a significant amount of data over the network. Other CAx systems replicate the design model database for each of the clients. This architecture implies a lower volume of data communication, but presents challenges in maintaining data consistency between client copies of the design model and managing conflicts between clients.
Given the foregoing, what is needed is additional and improved systems and methods for computer-assisted design and analysis of engineering objects, in particular, systems and methods that facilitate multiple simultaneous users. The embodiments disclosed herein were developed in response to these issues.